The review of photon counting detectors based missions for the laser time transfer ground to space in Chinese and European programs will be presented. The new self-calibration scheme of detector package will be introduce together with experimental results showing several days ground campaign. The produced data set allows applied post-processing algorithms to enhance final long-term stability of a range signal down to 2 ps over several days. As a near-future outlook, proposed instruments for new missions will be presented. The first one designed for the Galileo program - optical detector for the laser time transfer ground to space. The second one is designed to provide one-way ranging of unprecedented performance: sub-centimeter precision and accuracy may be achieved over distances of several AU. Data products from this instrument will provide an optical reference for distance measurements based on traditional ranging systems, being free from dispersive plasma effects normally encountered in standard RF-based ranging systems. And it also provide a complement radio science observations, by up-link signal time-of-arrival measurements vs. the on-board ultra stable oscillator. It will allow the use of standard TM/TC signals and down-link data transmissions for ranging and radio science purposes, while increasing significantly the observation time and the amount of data available for ranging and radio science. And last but not least it will enable also time transfer capability ground to space.

Date Published: 27 April 2010
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 7681, Advanced Photon Counting Techniques IV, 76810A (27 April 2010); doi: 10.1117/12.849909

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7681:
Advanced Photon Counting Techniques IV
Mark A. Itzler; Joe C. Campbell, Editor(s)